BEST Vegan Food in Budapest // INCLUDING INTERACTIVE MAP!

I recently spent three days in Budapest and was very impressed with their range of vegan options! I created a list (and interactive map – see end of post) of places I wanted to visit whilst there, but still didn’t even touch the surface of what this bustling Hungarian city has to offer. This city is a vegan dream! Here are the places I taste-tested and my top choices for vegan food in Budapest:

Vegan Love: Vegan Street Food

First up on my list are some of the best vegan burgers we’ve ever had (I’m still deciding whether they top Krakow’s Krowarzywa Burgers!). A couple of minutes walk from the famous Gellért Baths in Buda, this clean and modern fast food joint offers a fantastic selection of burgers and hotdogs. They have a few extras on the side such as salads and fries, but the burgers are definitely the stars of the show!

Pic from veganlove.hu

Gary chose the sweet potato burger (pictured in the middle) which comes stuffed with roasted zucchini, cheese, tomato, corn salad, horseradish & beetroot cream and basil ketchup. I chose their BBQ tofu burger (pictured right) which involved a chunk of BBQ marinated tofu topped with spinach, tomato, smoked cheese, crispy roasted onions and good slathering of garlic mayo. They were both amazing! You can see their full range of burgers on the Vegan Love website. Check out this video from 1:33 if you want to see how messy I get attempting to eat my tofu burger!

Napfényes Bistro

This little underground restaurant is a beautiful combination of open brick walls, arched ceilings, comfortable booth seating, amazing vegan food and rock bottom prices! We visited the original restaurant on Rózsa street, but there is actually now another restaurant and pastry shop which has opened close to the Ferenciek Tere Metro stop. Offering a range of pizzas, pastas and a few traditional Hungarian dishes, we really enjoyed our dinner here! I had the Fusilli Milanese; spicy tomato pasta with olives, salami, cheese and fried seitan strips. The tomato sauce wasn’t spicy at all, which wasn’t a problem for me but something to bear in mind if you are after something with a bit of a kick! The seitan strips turned out to be a schnitzel-style fillet tucked into the bowl, which was pretty damn good too. Gary went for the Hungarian pizza which was loaded with cheese, onions, peppers, oregano and sausage on a spelt flour base, which was equally tasty and a huge portion size! See the full menu on the Napfényes website.

Hummus Bar

This popular Israeli chain has restaurants dotted all over the city and serves a range of salads and main dishes. It’s not a vegan restaurant – it’s not even vegetarian. However, they do offer a decent range of tasty vegan options and also do takeaway boxes which came in handy for my train to Prague! I tried the couscous bowl which was topped with sautéed vegetables and chickpeas. I had an Arabic salad on the side made with cucumber, tomato, herbs and olive oil. I also had a takeaway falafel box for the train – 10 falafels (which were really good!) with salad and couscous. Check out the full menu on the Hummus Bar website.

Kozmosz

With a style very similar to Napfényes, Kozmosz is another underground restaurant with arched open brick walls, fairy lights and a relaxed atmosphere. They have a range of main meals, burgers, pasta and salads etc. I opted for a Hungarian stew which was a huge heap of chopped seitan smothered in a rich gravy and served with nokedli, Hungarian noodle dumplings (kind of like baby gnocchi). It was delicious and a super huge portion! I also tried their Kombucha, which I’m starting to love more and more – I think this one was made with Jasmine and it was the definitely best Kombucha I’ve had so far 🙂

Slow Foodiez

This vegan and vegetarian restaurant is best known for its brunches but also serves a range of starters, mains, desserts and cakes. I had already eaten at Kozmosz at this point so decided to treat myself to a dessert. I chose the sweet millet balls with cashew cream and raspberries. The portion was a little large (or maybe that was because I’d just stuffed myself with stew…) and the millet balls weren’t as sweet as I’d liked, but the cashew cream was delicious and it’s a great little place to sit a chill with an almond milk latte! See the menu on their website.

A couple of others I came across but didn’t actually eat at:

Hokedli Pottage Bar

Just around the corner from my hostel on Nagymező street, we stumbled across this tiny place selling steaming take-away pots of soups, different pottages (Hungarian stews) with toppings, breads, and cakes in eco-friendly containers. It looks like a fabulous place to grab some goulash on the go! You can see more photos on their Facebook page.

Vega City

Pretty much opposite the Hungarian National Museum, Vega City has quite a few different vegan cakes on display, as well as the standard smoothies, juices, soups, stews and a salad bar. You can opt to take-away or sit inside at their two-storey restaurant. We never ate here but I regret not trying the cakes as they all looked really tasty!

Edeni

We passed this place by accident as we walked from the Battány tér Metro stop to Margaret Bridge. This cafeteria style restaurant had a few different main options, including soups, stews and a veggie burger. They also had a salad bar and a few cakes (which were all raw). They had a nice outside terrace but I wasn’t blown away with the options, so decided not to stop but it would be a good option if you are over in that direction as there aren’t many vegan options that end of Buda!

96 Zen

Another accidental find, this Asian inspired restaurant serves a few different hot dishes including curries, stir-frys and dumplings, as well as sushi and Taiwanese bubble tea and smoothies. The food is all vegan but you’ll need to ask when ordering bubble tea as they use non-vegan ingredients in some. It looked pretty good, but we’d just eaten! The sushi looks especially tasty – check out their full menu on their website.

Anjuna Ice Pops

Thanks to Milan for this suggestion in the comments – this cute shop sells 100% natural ice pops made with real fruit. They are all completely vegan and gluten free too. Apparently they will soon be selling breakfast options too, such as chia puddings, acai bowls, and smoothies all made from plant-based milk. Sad to have missed this one!

There are SO many vegan places in Budapest, I’d be here all day if I listed them all!! So here’s a bigger list of veggie and vegan eateries. I also created a map so I could see where all the vegan places I was interested in were, in comparison to some of the main attractions (the purple dots are vegan places). I feel like this map could be super useful for you guys too, so here you go!

Click for interactive map!

Let me know if this has been helpful for you – or if I’ve missed an amazing vegan place off my list!

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4 Comments

Milan Szabo

August 29, 2016 at 5:50 pm

You missed one! 🙂
Anjuna Ice Pops offers vegan popsicles on a large scale and soon they will come up with tons of vegan brekkie like chia puddings, acai bowls, smoothies all made from plant-based milk.https://www.facebook.com/AnjunaPops/?fref=ts

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Hey there

welcome to the wild life!

I'm Alys, a full time explorer and vegan food blogger :) I've just finished working my way overland from Europe to Hong Kong (via Russia, Mongolia & China) and am now travelling around New Zealand!
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